Back before Internet cafes were all gone or MOBA dens all my friends would play a shitload of CS. Still dabble in source now and again mostly for Surf

I wrote this blog post two years ago: "CS GO is the next big esport, and you better believe it."

The reason you don't see it on this site is the same reason why you don't see League of Legends on this site. Even the Dota scene is rarely discussed on this site, despite the rather large Dota community that Brad has fostered. Giant Bomb doesn't cater to people who are "one game only" types. As Jeff has mentioned before, how can a general video games website match with specific video game coverage provided by niche sites? If I want CS news, I go to HLTV.org, not GB. If I want general video game coverage, I'll go to Giant Bomb.

Personally, I've put over 2000 hours into CS:GO, and I continue to watch and play the game on a daily basis. But GB is about games in general, so I don't really try to bring it up on the site.

Dan has mentioned CS before, and how people were yelling at him and being "super serious" about it. People play games for different reasons, and GB has never been about competitive games really. Dan doesn't actually like competition anyway - he just likes shitting on people and laughing about it, which is totally ok.

I used to play it a bit at Internet cafes back in 03/04. Then my friends and I all swapped over to Day of Defeat (which was the superior mod) and didn't go back to it after that.

beta - Played it a lot, LAN and later WAN. It was awesome!
retail - Played it pretty much, but less than beta.
source - some, perhaps 10-20 matches.
go - very little, probably less than an hour.

I lost my interest for Counter Strike a long time ago. But if I was a teen today, I would probably love CS:GO and play it to death.

I played it since 1.5 but only recently stopped, only because there are other games which grab my interest now like Rocket League, but i still have enormous amounts of respect for the game, its origins and its current state.
As you say it's been around for 15/16 years and the game hasn't really changed at all in that time, it doesn't get talked about much here because there isn't much to talk about unless there's a big Valve drama going on, the most recent one being paid sprays.

I played it a lot in beta, which seems like ages ago now. The guys in my class at high school were talking about it constantly and it was a social thing. I couldn't wait to get home and play. Addictive and easy to get into. It had that one-more-round thing for me, and I wanted to be good at it, also because of the social thing. It was a "cool" game to play. I played in a few semi-pro teams as well, which was a lot of fun, and I like to think I was an OK player. Nowadays it has evolved into a different beast entirely in my opinion.

That people still play it today in 2016 is blowing my mind, that it is a competitive thing that people watch online, who would have thought this back in the beta days.

@lastbesthope: Yeah some people are just awful at that kind of thing. I'm sure it's in part because you're playing at the same time, it is kinda difficult to word things like that whilst still playing, and part because people are just assholes lol.

@e30bmw: Well I'll be fair, it's been a while since I played so maybe stuff is fixed now. But I'm referring to the directional audio bugs (especially on different elevations), spotty collision on boxes and other crap in the maps, and the headshot hitboxes. I'm 99% sure the hitboxes were fixed like a year ago though. And I know it's intentional and not "jank", but I still dislike the way that game handles recoil/spray patterns. It feels unintuitive and bad. Kind of a much less extreme version of Fallout 3s bullets whiffing randomly.

Is the Deagle not garbage yet btw? I love that gun but it felt terrible in the patch I played most. Second bullet went so wild you had to shoot a full man's length away from people to hit lol.

@ivdamke I mean. It could still be improved. They could add in fake Tetris or Bejeweled to play during spectator lol. Just anything to do other than tab out and browse. Though I personally always kept spectating so I could support my buddies. The benefits of 5 stacking.

I have about 300 hours in CS:GO. I wish my friend group would play it too, it's easily the best multiplayer FPS since Modern Warfare. You just have to get over the initial hump about how the guns shoot unlike any other game.

I played the original betas (mostly beta 5 and 6 as I recall) like crazy back in 1999-2000. Didn't have a great PC at home, so spent ridiculous amounts of money on playing at Internet cafes with my classmates.

I did drop off when the game got its official full release, felt like it got tuned a bit much for the competitive crowd rather than us who enjoyed it for the silly fun of driving a jeep around an oval track and bombing a toilet, and when the people you encountered online had their whole map approach planned out and got angry if anybody in the game, even on the opposing side deviated from the this-is-how-you're-supposed-to-play guides

Back in those early beta days it was so much fun to just explore the maps and try different things. I'm sure that aggressive competitive conformism was what really made me appreciate games with procedurally generated maps as even when they're admittedly more bland from a design perspective, there are no predetermined paths you have to stick to when playing them.

I've played a little of Condition Zero, CS: Source, CSGO, but none of them have really captured the magic of those first few CS betas back in 1999.

@paulmako: in short, yes... A lot. especially in the early 2000's

The accuracy reset on the deagle is really long, by design. Crouching negates most of it. If it wasn't, the gun would be OP. However, in the hands of a skilled player, it's still a very viable weapon assuming you use it in the correct situations.

I've played 100s of hours of CS:Source and a decent amount of 1.6 before Steam logged the hours played. Shout out to UKCS.

CS:Go is fine except it offers no game modes I want to play.

Servers have effectively been killed off unless you're looking for surf servers etc. It was much better playing with the same people over a prolonged period rather than randoms in random matches.

The casual mode is garbage because I want FF on and I want to have to manage my money / armour etc. The game is at it's best when you have to use the shite assault rifles and yet you manage to win the round and get some kills. This never happens in casual because everyone just runs around with AWPs and Auto-Rifles now because they are never banned and everyone is cash rich. Wheres the love for the scout!

Competitive would be fine but I absolutely don't want to play 5 v 5 and be trapped in a map for up to 60 mins.

Why isn't there just a normal mode? So I can play the game like the previous versions. Am I missing something?

I've never actually played it. At this point with a job and a life I probably won't ever have the time to get into something like that seriously enough to truly enjoy it.

Been playing it on and off for the last oh about 15 years or so. I'll go a long while but I always end up playing it again at some point. What a game.

You won't get any arguments that Casual is garbage and needs a major revamp to be even remotely useful. However, what do you think is a "normal" mode? Because most people would consider that Competitive. And there's a healthy server community, depending on the types of modes you want to play. Surf, b-hop, kz, gun game and obviously dm are all pretty heavily represented. I see a decent amount of stuff like scout knives as well.

@e30bmw: I guess I mean competitive mode but not 5 v 5 where you get punished for leaving and are stuck on one map for a best of what is it 30? How about letting me play with the competitive settings but with more people anything up to 16 v 16 and with customs maps etc. Effectively exactly what the previous games have been.

Regarding servers I know surf and gungame etc exist, that's fine but there's no community anymore on CS:Go. No standard Counter Strike where people will go every time they log onto CS, no rivalries or sense of competition really develop. I guess it's the way the majority of FPS are now, no one sticks around on the same servers anymore.

22k people playing CS, 10k playing Source right now on Steam. My guess if is you want to play classic CS on servers with community, that's where you go. All still top 50 in Steam active users, even if GO is far more popular.

This thread actually reminded me of Science & Industry (another HL mod that we used to play a lot of around the era of CS being the new hotness) and I ended up finding out it's still actively maintained and there's a Steam Group that arranges regular sessions so I may well be giving that a go soon. If you're looking for a game with community then you need to go and find that community, something as popular as GO will likely have a few communities you would enjoy but it's hard to find them in the masses (and modern matchmaking design focus). But classic CS should have some decent community cohesion for the players who are sticking with it.

I've been an admin/member of a community that runs servers in NA for almost 3 years now. Our gungame server has a pretty good core of people that play there a ton.

@e30bmw: Yeah but I'm not talking about Gungame, that's something that I'd personally pop in and out of. I'm glad it's going well but I don't see many servers where proper full fat Counter Strike is played. The server browser has been killed by the automatic way to find a game. It's disappointing.

No, I wasn't saying that the mode could be changed. I was saying that I know my 'skill' can be improved in order to stay alive longer. Sorry. And as far as I know the only "death match" there is is gun game and I was looking more for a Team Death Match sort of thing. Not really complaining as I don't want every FPS to turn into the same game with the same modes. Just really like the mechanics of CS:GO.

I played some of Condition Zero on my old Lenovo T410 out of curiosity back in 2013. It didn't really click with me because of how used to consoles I was at the time. I wonder if I should go back to it now that I'm on a proper desktop.

There is both Valve TDM servers and also community ones. Although the community dm servers tend to be ffa.

Back whenever you could first download bots off the net, so somewhat early days of CS. Only played it online with a group of friends for maybe a month or so when CS: Source was released, but that was it.

Absolutely. Your aim has to be so much quicker and so much more precise than the games you listed to play at any sort of decent level. As a result this is probably the only game where you absolutely must be aiming for the head every single time (unless you are awping) to even do well at a mediocre level. And that is not because body shots are that slow, you can drop someone very fast with 3-4 bullets in the back or chest with the AK or M4's. It is just that if the enemy has even half a second to whip around and hit your head you are going to lose the battle. The thing about Halo and Gears is you can only be so fast and precise with a controller. You are simply capped in your movement and aiming no matter what you do. I suppose a few characters in Overwatch have a very high ceiling, but that game is definitely more lenient when it comes to hitboxes.

@sirpsychosexy: Perhaps if we're looking at the aiming skill aspect in a vacuum (and I'm right there with you in thinking the shooting and precision in CS takes a ton of skill)... but you have to factor in every other facet of movement and strategy that adds to the overall skill gap and learning curve. Shooting is just the tip of the iceberg for the games I listed and most put as much emphasis on skillful movement and positioning as they do aiming (and so does CS of course).

Siege's environmental destruction alone puts it on a whole other level than Counter-Strike to me (otherwise the two are fairly similar). The mobility options in Titanfall, Overwatch, Halo and Gears create an entirely new realm of player expression. I also find it difficult to accurately compare different skill ceilings across multiple franchises - instead you could fairly judge a competitive title in the context of other entries in the series (eg Halo 1 takes more skill than Halo 4). But even then you run into subjectivity on personal preference and what "feels" better. Every game also has a different TTK and "ballet dance" to encounters - Halo for instance primarily involves maintaining damage on a moving target over time, while CS is more often a game about seeing your enemy first and instant death. The role of aggressor constantly ebbs and flows in a game of Gears.

I've played it on and off over the years, but I've hated it pretty much every time. I *sort of* appreciate the tactical elements, but I think de_dust2 is a bad map, and I really don't like playing demolition so there's not much in there for me.

For me CS has always sat in a weird no-man's land where it's not quite a pure-twitch shooter like QIII:A and it's not mil-sim like ArmA or something. It just doesn't feel good, the gun mechanics feel "old" to me.

@dharmabum: I'd disagree that shooting and precision is the tip of the iceberg in competitive FPS games. It is the bulk of the iceberg and CS still blows everything else out of the water. With that said CS is as deep if not deeper strategically than the other games. In addition, the maps currently played in CS are expertly crafted and very well balanced. Each of them foster unique tactics and strategies that are still constantly being explored. I would say I am biased, but I have played alot of Gears, Halo, and Overwatch and lately Titanfall 2. I have even been keeping up with competitive Overwatch. Still it is clear to me why CS is still so huge and the competitive scenes of these games are chasing just a fraction of its success. It is just an extremely fair game with near perfectly crafted mechanics that heavily rewards both skill and intelligent play. It reminds me of Starcraft in that way.

With that said I have never played or heard anyone talk about Rainbow Six Siege competitively. Maybe it has a higher skill ceiling that Counter Strike, but somehow I doubt it.

I've been playing it for a good 15 years and now actually make skins for it full time (Along with Dota 2 items). Definitely has had it's ups and downs but GO has come a looong way since it's rocky launch. Never thought I'd find myself working on a game I grew up with.

It does feel like the devs got overwhelmed by the sudden surge of popularity the game had, but they've slowly been catching up with the demands of their user base.

Played it a fair bit like 13-14 years ago back when I had to run Cheating Death on my computer to get into local servers, cheat utilities were all around and freely available, and WON IDs were still a thing. All I remember was getting banned from a server because I killed a dude by shooting him through a box with a Desert Eagle in dust2 because his gun was sticking out. I was more of a Half-Life Deathmatch/Team Fortress Classic/Natural Selection kinda guy back then anyways.